


Encounter at the Shore

by Ashleopard



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:45:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8854966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashleopard/pseuds/Ashleopard
Summary: Equalist!Asami ambushes Korra late one night, seeking revenge for her mother's death. Korra talks to her and tries to convince her this may not be the best idea. One-shot, late night writing. Equivalent of a doodle.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: I came up with an idea one minute and jotted this down the next. No real set plot, just a random doodle of writing. Thought I would publish it because some people might like short little tidbits like this. If you do, enjoy! :) (Might be slightly ooc I'm having trouble telling. Season one Korra is much more impulsive than I'm used to writing).

One moment, Korra was enjoying a stroll by the shore of Air Temple Island, trying to buy herself some inner peace. The attack at the Pro-bending arena had hit her rather close to home, and the fact that the Equalists had gotten away didn’t really sit well with her. If only there was something she could’ve done, or maybe if Chief Beifong hadn’t had to swoop down and save her last minute. She was the Avatar, right? It was her job to defeat the bad guys, right?  
But the next, she was pinned against a tree, poked and prodded into defenselessness. She struggled, attempted to kick whoever the perpetrator may be, but missed by what seemed to be a long shot. She was met with a swift kick to her standing shin and fell to the ground immediately, head reeling from the unexpectedness of the attack. She looked up - expecting, perhaps, Amon’s right hand man, but it wasn’t mustache guy; not by a long shot. Unless he had shaved his only defining feature.

“Who are you?” Korra gasped, trying to throw a punch. It obviously didn’t work - she had to wait for the chi-blocking attack to wear off. “Amon too scared to face me down himself?”

The equalist removed her mask, revealing long, beautiful black hair, tied back in a ponytail. A faintly familiar smirk played across her lips, a glimmer in her eyes. “Avatar Korra,” she said, as if they’d just so happened to catch each other on the street. “How nice to see you! I believe we’ve met? At the gala?”

Korra remembered very clearly the girl who had been latched to Mako’s arm. “Asami,” she muttered.

“You _do_ remember. Great!” While Korra was still down, Asami took the opportunity to pull some ropes out of a large pocket on the side of her uniform. “Do me a favor, will you? Scoot a little closer to that tree.” Korra prepared a very snide remark, only to have it forcibly removed from her lungs as Asami kicked her square in the chest. Korra fell back, her head hitting the tree with an unnerving thud. “Perfect. Now, before you go getting any ideas in your head, it wasn’t Amon who sent me.” She grabbed Korra under her arms and pulled her up against the tree. Korra tried to struggle against the ropes as they bound her. “Sometimes I like to act on my own free will. But I’m sure you know the feeling.”

“Why are you doing this?” Korra grunted. “You said you love Pro-bending, and don’t you have a thing for Mako?”

“Oh, those things.” Asami came around front and bent down to look Korra in the eyes. “It’s amazing how people are so easily deceived, no? I’ve got to say, lying is the easy part. It’s pretending to actually like the damn bastard that’s difficult. He’s a _firebender,_ after all.” The pure contempt in her voice made Korra cringe in a way that one might upon the sound of nails scraping a chalkboard.

“Look, Amon’s wrong. You’ve got to listen to me. I know it may seem like benders have-”

“Cut it,” Asami interrupted. She held her hand out and, for once in her life, Korra fell silent. “You don’t have to tell me the movement is corrupt or unfounded. I’ve been hearing the song and dance on repeat my whole life. It’s exhausting. I can even overlook my hatred of you filthy benders long enough to work alongside them, support them, befriend them. But you know the one thing I can’t get over?” She took a firm grip on Korra’s chin, pulling their faces closer together so Korra had no doubts when she saw the unadulterated malice shine through Asami’s eyes. “The Avatar.”

“I’ve barely been in the city for less than a week!” Korra exclaimed, her frustration getting the best of her. “What have I done in that time besides being bullied into a task force and facing unfounded threats? Tell me, what could I have possibly done to earn this?”

Asami backed away and stood, casting a final glare at Korra before looking out over the shore, back to the city. Smoke still hung in the air from the explosions and hundreds of police swarmed the arena - the only visible sign being the flashing of lights. “Because you weren’t there. Not when we needed you.”

Korra groaned. “Vague much?”

Asami’s voice sliced through the night, sharper than a knife. “Twelve years ago, you weren’t there. When that _firebender_ broke into our house. He escaped, did you know? He got away with our radio, an irreplaceable family heirloom, and my mother’s life.”

A stab of sympathy shook through Korra. It didn’t last long. “I’m sorry, Asami. I don’t know what to say. I was five.”

“And I was six.” Asami turned back and stomped toward Korra, for once lacking the grace she so commonly seemed to carry. “I was six the last time I saw my mother. My dad told me to look away, but I didn’t. I heard her screams from my room. I saw her… her body. I smelled the burns. Do you know why I’m upset?” She was really close again, hot breath singeing Korra’s chin. “Because you’re not there. Everyday people - innocent, good people - die. Mothers, fathers, sisters, _wives._ You’re our Avatar too. Did you ever think of that? No.” She slapped Korra. “Because all you care about is mastering the four elements. As if it makes you supreme in doing so. It doesn’t. How do I know? Because you’re the one tied to the tree. Not me.”

“So that’s it,” Korra spat back sarcastically. “A loose cannon fires and the rest need to pay? Look, I’m truly sorry about what happened to your mom. But this… this isn’t exactly what one would call ‘coping’. You can’t push all your anger onto me! I’ve been doing my damn best to help protect people since I got to this city, but I’m a bit preoccupied with all the ‘down with the Avatar’ propaganda.”

Asami shook her head, her face set in eerie resolve. “I was hurt. My father sent me to therapy for years. He blames the benders. He blames the Avatar. He’s right - he would never lie to me.” As she spoke, she pulled a glove out of one of her pockets. She slid it on her hand - it fit perfectly, much to Korra’s dread. “It’s your fault my mother died. It’s your fault our lives were ruined.”

“Ruined? You guys really are crazy.” Korra realized a little too late that lashing out was not about to help her as Asami flexed her hand inside the glove. Korra had regained enough feeling in her legs to try to push herself back, further into the tree. “Woah, hey, Asami. Asami, listen to me, I’m begging you. T-this whole thing is just a terrible misunderstanding. I don’t know why you’re blaming me… Tenzin would probably say you had no place else to direct your anger. Great, now I sound like a boring old guy. But, uh, I know you’ve spent years fixating on this, and this is hard to hear but, it’s wrong.”

Asami was close enough that Korra could feel the electricity running through her hand as it hovered above her heart, far too close for comfort. Asami ran a finger down Korra’s jaw, coaxing the Avatar to look at her (she seemed fond of using simple touches to get what she wanted). “What do you want me to do?” For the first time, her voice cracked. Korra could see the tears building in her eyes as they hardened, glossy. “My entire life, this is what my father told me. This is what I was meant to do. Revenge is all he’s ever wanted, and with this… he’ll finally get it.”

Korra had a sneaking suspicion that Hiroshi wasn’t going to stop with the Avatar, but she didn’t mention it. Instead, she decided to take a gamble. “Is this what your mom would have wanted?”

Asami blinked, catching pause. “What?” she asked, as if that had never occurred to her. “It - it doesn’t matter! She’s dead.”

“But if she could see you right now, would she have wanted this? Would she have wanted you to fill your every waking moment with such anger and hatred?” Now she was directly quoting Tenzin - using most of the sentences that she didn’t quite understand. However, a lot of people said he was wise, and it seemed to be working. “Because I don’t think she would. I think she would’ve wanted you to remember her as your mother, not a painful memory.”

“My father says-”

“Your father says what Amon puts in his mouth,” Korra dared, an edge crossing her voice at the mention of Amon. “You can pretend all you want that he’s doing this out of love, but I think that stopped being true a long time ago. I think love would be moving on and cherishing her memory, but spirits, not this. Never this.”

And so Asami hesitated. Her eyes quivered as they looked into Korra’s - the green more spectacular than Korra had ever seen. Albeit, she’d never had this good of a look at someone else’s eyes. Despite the grueling day, her makeup remained perfect; her hair seemed flawless. Korra could smell a faint perfume and hated the fact that it smelled good, not in this situation.

“Do you really think that?”

“Yeah.” Korra lied and snuck around a lot, but not about this. “I think my mother is one of the best people I know and, in this situation, she would want me to move on and… well, not kill the Avatar. I don’t know, at least that’s what I would want. And a lot of people have told me I’m a lot like my mother.” She didn’t dare mention it was mostly looks - she got a lot of her personality from her father. Her mother was rather calm-natured.

Asami showed a ghost of a smile, if only for a moment. “I get that a lot too. My father says it’s my laugh. His partners say it’s my looks.”

“Exactly!”

Asami sat back on her heels, drawing the glove away from Korra and staring down at it. “Don’t think this is over,” she said, her voice carrying that threatening edge once again. Somehow, Korra found herself trying to deny respect for the girl. “I still standby. I want to help the world. I want to make it a safer place, even if doing so means I don’t get my… my father’s revenge.”

“It seems as if we’re fighting the same side of the war.”

The warning in her eyes quieted Korra, but Asami remained. Eventually, she stood and turned away. “I’ll let you go this time, Avatar.”

“Thanks.”

“Watch your back. The Equalists… they aren’t a big fan of you.”

“I figured.”

And before Korra could say another thing, the girl was gone. To where, she had no clue, but she had plenty of time to wonder as she waited for her bending to come back so she could firebend the ropes.

_I wonder how many other Equalists have a similar story?_


End file.
